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I attended an event at Northumbria University today. It was titled Brexit and the Law School and I was asked to contribute some thoughts on ‘Learning, Teaching and the University: The Changing Shape of the University Community’. Below is a summary of my brief talk. I’ll try and summarise the rest of the day’s discussion in another post

Law Schools are, in my view, distinct little communities within the wider university community, within the wider local, regional and national communities and, again in my view, communities are shaped by those who inhabit them. Therefore, to understand the impact of Brexit on Law Schools we need to understand how Brexit might change the make-up of the Law School and university communities and what that change might mean on the ground

So how will the make-up of Law School and University inhabits change post Brexit? We don’t know!

Here’s what we do know

UCAS figures show that applications from UK students for Law Courses for 2017 entry are up by 7% whereas applications from EU students are down 3%

UCAS figures also show that applications from UK students across the board for 2017 entry are down by 4%, whereas applications from EU students are down by 6%

The proportion of EU students studying law is relatively small when compared to the proportion of EU students studying some other subjects

The number and proportion of EU students varies quite dramatically between institutions

There is lots of anecdotal evidence that EU national academic staff are considering or actively looking to leave the UK and work elsewhere in Europe or the rest of the world

There is also anecdotal evidence of EU nationals discounting the UK as a possible destination for work

However there is also anecdotal evidence of EU national colleagues making plans to stay in the UK long term and also of some recruitment of EU national staff since the referendum

The UCU survey about academics’ views on Brexit suggests that 76% of non-UK national academics are considering leaving the UK. That’s pretty damning. However, I would urge caution over that figure because ‘considering’ is very different from ‘planning to’ and the considering may be the result of quite significant uncertainty. Thing may change as we get clarification on what rights exactly will be available to our EU colleagues

4. This leads me on to what these figures don’t tell us

Whether they are a trend or a blip. The applications for Law from EU nationals are still higher in number than for the 3 years running up to 2016 so was 2016 just a bumper year and we are returning to ‘normal’?

What will the figures be over the next 5-10 years? Only once we know that can the data really tell us something about whether Brexit had a significant impact on the number of EU national (law) students in the UK

If it is more than a blip, is it really Brexit or the uncertainty around Brexit that has caused the drop?

5. In short we don’t know how the make-up of Law School inhabitants might change. We really don’t. But let’s assume the worst – that we will loose the majority of our EU students and colleagues and that we will loose access to the Erasmus+ programme and research mobility/exchange programmes – what would the impact of that be? Well I think it would be devastating. I think we could see

a shift on who and what is valued in Law Schools

a more inward looking and insular approach to scholarship and teaching

less engagement with EU and international issues and in particular with non-common law issues and approaches

less well rounded curricula -explicit and hidden

a reduction in the opportunities to learn from each other and a loss of the sort of creativity that happens when you tackle a problem together with people who bring different ways of thinking and doing things to the table

less tolerance for different ideas and approaches and ways of thinking

less well rounded lawyers – whether academics, practitioners or ‘just’ citizens of (a possibly much more narrowly defined) world

So my question really is – how do we make sure that we don’t become insular and inward looking law schools that irrelevant to the rest of the world or possibly just irrelevant?

Two miles into my 10k run I was sat on my arse at the edge of the River Wharfe with tears running down my face trying to focus on a little chaffinch in the tree in front of me. Yep, running meltdown – again. I wasn’t even really aware I was struggling. We’d had a lovely first mile with a little stop to watch a deer for a few minutes and I felt fine really. My legs were a bit tight but really, nothing dramatic. We were running at the Bolton Abbey Estate and had just gone under the aqueduct when panic set in. I said that I thought I should go back, we walked a bit, then I stopped completely and then Kath sat me down. So there I was, not quite 2 miles in. FFS.

Here’s post number 2 for Mental Health Awareness Week. I just wanted to share some thoughts about what I find most difficult about both anxiety and depression. I’m sure there are other things that other people find more difficult and I do think these things play out differently for different people but here’s a little part of my story.

As an academic I am used to my brain working. I am used to being able to think, analyse, critique… I am used to being able to string sentences together and I am used to working with complex ideas. I’m a lawyer; language, words, text, arguments – that’s what I do. So for me the hardest thing about anxiety has been the panic that sweeps into my brain like a tidal wave of chaos. It turns my brain into a jumbled mess of negative thoughts and emotions and turns off my ability to process those. I’m generally a little chaotic and a lot emotional and I often have more than one thought or idea at a time and I am always working on lots of things at one but I can also sit down and map, sort, collate and connect, link and compare. I can deal with lots of information and I can do it quickly but when anxiety hits it feels like I forget how. It’s not that I get overwhelmed with too much emotions or information, it’s that I lose the ability to order it. Do you remember the bit in the first Harry Potter book where Harry and Ron have to catch a key with wings and they’re in a room full of keys with wings. Imagine my thoughts and feelings as those keys and imagine that I am usually a fairly competent witch flying on a broom but when anxiety hits someone increases the speed of the thoughts tenfold and makes me fly into strong crosswinds. It’s disorientating and frightening because I can’t hold on to a thought for long enough to deal with it. I can’t dismiss negative ones because they whizz past and I can’t work with productive or positive thoughts because they’re gone before I know what they are.

When depression strikes my brain goes quite fuzzy. I feel like Winnie the Pooh – a bear of very little brain, like there’s just cotton wool between my ears. It means that even thoughts I can hold on to, I can’t process properly. I can’t follow arguments or thoughts all that well. I don’t understand. As an academic that is terrifying. At my worst I have picked up my own work and haven’t been able to follow my own argument. I have had people talk to me and I have literally had no clue what they were saying. It’s like everything is presented in a language that uses the same words as English but they mean something different. Actually it’s a lot like having a conversation between sociologists, lawyers and political scientists – we often use the same terminology but mean something different. So maybe I’m not depressed, maybe I just do too much interdisciplinary work. (I am not being serious here – obviously. There is no way my depression addled brain could do interdisciplinary work and untangle the nuanced use of language. I can only do this when I’m well).

Because thinking clearly is so important to what I do and who I am, it’s the not being able to think clearly that I find the hardest about suffering from anxiety and depression. It also means that I often notice it coming because my ability to think deteriorates. That’s a good thing I suppose, it means I can try and stop it. More thoughts tomorrow maybe.